1. Technical Field
The present disclosure relates generally to an apparatus and method of bandwidth aggregation for radio accessing on multi-networks.
2. Related Art
The routing mechanism of wireless networks having a connection management, such as the 3rd Generation Partnership Project (3GPP) or the Worldwide Interoperability for Microwave Access (WiMAX) network, and wireless networks not having a connection management, such as the Wireless Fidelity (WiFi), are different. When the user equipment (UE) desires to connect with a wireless network having a connection management, the UE first establishes a connection, and the UE is configured with a dedicated bandwidth. Also, its radio access is achieved by the non-contention-based Media Access Control (MAC) technology. When the UE desires to connect with the wireless network not having a connection management, the UE does not need to be configured with the dedicated bandwidth once connects to network, and its radio access is achieved by the contention-based MAC technology. FIG. 1 and FIG. 2 are examples describing the packet routing mechanism of these two mentioned wireless networks.
FIG. 1A and FIG. 1B show schematic views for a packet routing mechanism of a 3GPP mobile network. Refer to FIG. 1A, a channel is established before an UE begins to access the service to reserve the network resources from the UE to the P-gateway (P-GW) of a core network 102. The UE may establish many EPS (Evolved Packet System) bearers to access different services. In the packet routing mechanism of an established EPS bearer, there is a logic channel A between the UE and a home eNode B (marked as HeNB), a GRPS Tunneling Protocol-User Plane (GTP-U) tunnel between the HeNB and an S-gateway (S-GW), and a GTP-u tunnel between the S-GW and a P-GW. The HeNB receives packets through the logical channel A, uses a look-up table to know the corresponding GTP-u tunnel for the S-GW; the S-GW may also query a routing table to find the corresponding tunnel for the P-GW. For example, a bearer context 110 of the UE corresponds to a Traffic Flow Template (TFT) recording the information of the logical channel A; the HeNB may query the table 120 according to the information of the logic channel A to find two Tunnel End (TE) identifiers (IDs) of a GTP-u tunnel between the HeNB and the S-GW, i.e. the TEID 1 of the HeNB and the TEID 2 of the S-GW. A table 120 records the information of the logical channel A between the UE and the HeNB, and two TEIDs of the GTP-u channel between the HeNB and the S-GW. The S-GW may also query a table 130, to find two TEIDs of another GTP-u tunnel between the S-GW and the P-GW, i.e. the TEID 4 of the S-GW and the TEID 3 of the P-GW. The table 130 records two TEIDs of the GTP-u tunnels between the HeNB and the S-GW, and two TEID of the other GTP-u tunnels between the S-GW and the P-GW. A table 140 of the P-GW also corresponds to a traffic flow pattern to record two TEIDs of another GTP-u tunnels, i.e. the TEID 4 of the S-GW and the TEID 3 of the P-GW. The bearer context 110, the table 120, the table 130, and the table 140 are stored respectively in the corresponding bearer of a connection management system in the 3GPP mobile network. The downlink packets may also be transmitted to the UE by using the same packet routing principle. FIG. 1B illustrates each corresponding protocol stack of the UE, the HeNB, the S-GW, the P-GW, and the application server in the 3GPP mobile network of FIG. 1A.
FIG. 2A and FIG. 2B show schematic views for a packet routing mechanism of a WiFi network, wherein a WiFi access point (AP) simultaneously supports the interface of the WiFi network and the Ethernet (Ethernet) and connects with an Asymmetric Digital Subscriber Line (ADSL) 230. Refer to FIG. 2A, the ADSL 230 and the WiFi AP 220 may use the Address Resolution Protocol (ARP) to obtain the MAC address of the next transmit node. Therefore, as shown in a content of the table 210, in an uplink packet of the UE, the destination MAC address is filled in the WiFi MAC address MAC2 of the WiFi AP. After the packet is received by the WiFi AP 220, it is transmitted on the Ethernet 222, and the Ethernet MAC address MAC3 of the WiFi AP 220 is filled in the field of the source MAC address, as shown in the content of a table 234. The destination MAC address is filled in the MAC address (i.e. MAC4) of the ADSL 230, as shown in the content of a table 224. After the packet information is received by the ADSL 230, the packet is transmitted by an Internet Protocol (IP) routing mechanism. The downlink packets may also be transmitted to the UE by using the same packet routing mechanism. FIG. 2B illustrates each corresponding protocol stack of the UE, the WiFi AP, the ADSL, and the application server in the WiFi network of FIG. 2A. In the protocol stack corresponding to the WiFi AP, a WiFi interface protocol 212 and an Ethernet interface protocol 222 are documented.
There are many existing network integration technologies, such as the integration technology of the WiFi/WiMAX and the 3GPP networks. A technology uses the NAS protocol, wherein the UE first transmits the WLAN capabilities to the service node (SGSN) in GPRS (General Packet Radio Service), the SGSN then forwards it to the WAG, to solve how to transmit the WLAN capabilities of the wireless transmit/receive unit (WTRU) for dual-mode mobile phone GPRS/Wireless LAN (WLAN) or Universal Mobile Telecommunications System (UMTS)/WLAN to the network side. Another technology develops a handover procedure, and the source-initiated handover is strengthen in this procedure, i.e., the handover request is initiated by the base station of the mobile network, to allow a dual-mode device be handed in by the mobile network to the wireless local area network. Yet another technology discusses the bandwidth aggregation and proposes the solution for the network layer, and the discussion focuses on the IP packet reordering.
After understanding the routing mechanisms of the above mentioned wireless networks having or not having a connection management, it may be seen that the current mobile device (such as mobile phone) supporting such as the WiFi network may connect to the Internet by selecting only one of the routing mechanisms of the wireless network having the connection management (such as the 3GPP network) and the wireless network not having the connection management (such as the WiFi network). Therefore, the base station of a wireless network having the connection management (such as the 3GPP network) must encapsulate packets in the correct tunnel for the uplink transmission. Thus using a wireless network not having the connection management (such as the WiFi network) to transmit packets of such as the 3GPP network needs to have enough information to find the correct uplink tunnel.
Therefore, it is an important issue on how to design a bandwidth aggregation technology for radio accessing on multi-networks that may allow the packets belonging to a same session to simultaneously take paths on multi-networks between the base station and the UE, and then merge into the same tunnel at the other site.